Youthful and Aging Nations

12/16/2005

It's not work that kills, but worry.
African Proverb

The Exchange status report, “The Diverse World of Early Childhood,” observed that the world is divided between youthful and aging nations…

Slightly more than 10% of the world's population is under the age of five, and just under 7% of the population is over the age of 64. However, these averages disguise the fact that there exists a major gulf between the youthful and the aging nations of the world.

Nations in Sub-Saharan Africa consistently have twice the world average of children under the age of five, while nations in Europe have less than half the worldwide average. Two factors account for the concentration of preschoolers in African nations.

First, nations in Sub-Saharan Africa have the highest birth rates in the world. Birth rates range from 32 births per 1,000 population in Kenya to 53 in Niger.
Second, the AIDS epidemic is decimating adult populations in many African nations. To demonstrate how serious this crisis is, in Zimbabwe it is estimated that if the AIDS crisis didn't exist, life expectancy would be 64.9 years, but as it is today with the AIDS epidemic, life expectancy is only 39.2 years. The bottom line is that life expectancies in Sub-Saharan Africa are the shortest in the world, well below the world average of 63 years. Life expectancies in many of these nations are depressingly low: 37 years in Zambia, 41 in Ethiopia, 48 in Kenya, and 56 in South Africa.

Looking at the other end of the spectrum, nations in Europe (as well as Japan) have considerably older populations than the world average. For example, 17.5% of the population of Italy is over the age of 64, while only 4.5% is under the age of five. In Sweden, 17.4% of the population is over 64 and 5.9% under the age of five. In Japan, 15.9% of the population is over 64 and 4.8% under the age of five.

The aging of the Western European and Japanese populations is the result of two primary factors:

First, fewer babies are being born in these nations. The birth rates in Western Europe (ranging from 9 births per 1,000 population in Germany to 15 in Iceland and Japan (10 births per 1,000 population) are among the lowest in the world. They are less than half of the world average birth rate of 22 births per 1,000 population.
Second, people are living longer in these nations. Life expectancies in Western Europe (with an average life expectancy of 78 years) and Japan (80 years) are among the highest in the world. They far exceed the world average.

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